Kirk Hamilton

Nintendo's new Wii U console isn't even out yet, but there's already a group of funky game designers putting together a cool, arty game for it. The game in question is Chasing Aurora, a simple, papercraft-style flying game in which you take control of one of few sky-rats, more commonly known as "birds."

The game has a single-player component, but in this video, you can watch five people playing it in multiplayer. What's cool is that, like in some of the Nintendoland games, the Chasing Aurora multiplayer uses the Wii U's remote gamepad screen to make a new type of multiplayer game possible. Here, it's hide 'n seek, where the player with the gamepad controls a brightly glowing bird trying to stay hidden from the four players on the TV screen. Without the gamepad, obviously, the other players could just see the player who's "it."

That kind of game wouldn't be possible with a traditional console setup; and really, it's the most basic kind of gamepad-centric multiplayer. I'm very much enjoying thinking of other creative ways that the Wii U will use its second screen for multiplayer. I'm still ambivalent towards Wii U in general, but I'm starting to get into the idea of playing games like this with friends. Now to get a bigger apartment...